Because He's a Duellist
by SamCyberCat
Summary: When she was paired up with him for the tag tournament Junko was forced to think about Juudai. As well as think about why she hadn’t thought about him before. Juudai/Junko.


Based in Tag Force 2. A drabble that's been playing on my mind since the two were put together for one week on the game. I caved and decided to write it out.

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He cheered out loudly when he won. Again.

It could certainly be said that Juudai Yuki loved duelling. Being good at it was just an added bonus. And yet… she found that a lot of his opponents didn't mind losing to him. With the amount of energy and enthusiasm he showed while duelling it'd be easy to picture him being just as happy about losing as he was winning. That attitude sort of rubbed off on people.

He was an interesting tag partner to say the least.

Junko wasn't quite sure what to make of it when they'd been put together. Currently the rotation of tag partners lasted about a week, and no one knew whom they'd be getting as a partner until the computer put the two names next to each other.

She'd never paid much attention to him before.

"That was an amazing duel!" he cried out.

"You said that about the last five as well," she said doubtfully, as the two of them walked away to find their next opponent.

"Well they were all amazing," Juudai assured, "You're a really good duellist."

She rolled her eyes, "Don't flatter me with compliments, there's loads better duellists than me in the school."

"I mean it," he stopped walking so suddenly that she had to turn back to look at him, "I've never seen you duel before but you've got some really good strategies." She made to dismiss this compliment but he was faster, "Can I see that Winged Rhynos card you have?"

Shrugging she said, "Sure," and took it out of her deck to hand it to him.

He admired it for a few moments, before saying, "That card really saved the duel at least two times. I doubt we'd have had enough life points to come back if that Mirror Force had got through. It really is a handy effect isn't it?"

"Y-yes, it is," Junko said, surprised by his attention to detail.

To her Winged Rhynos was an important part of her strategy. But others didn't see it that way… None of them seemed to see the use in a card that could be sent back to its owner's hand when a trap was activated. Juudai was the first person that'd thought it would be useful to avoid pesky traps that could hinder it like she thought. Not only that but he'd used the effect too.

Her heart almost missed a beat. That meant that during the duel her card had been returned to Juudai's hand. She hadn't noticed. Sure, he played it soon after that, but she should have noticed that for a brief moment in time her card wasn't considered part of her deck. Why hadn't she?

She looked at Juudai, his eager face watching the Winged Rhynos card and comparing it to the cards in his own deck.

She'd never paid much attention to him before.

And she had to admit she'd thought he was a bit stupid. He didn't seem to care about anything. But… looking at him now he clearly did care about duelling. He knew what to do; he just didn't put it into words. That must have been what others meant when they said he was instinctive. So he probably wasn't stupid after all… She inwardly felt bad for labelling him as such now.

"We should hang out more," Juudai called, breaking her thoughts once more.

"Huh, what? We shouldn't do that," uttered Junko, before she had a chance to think about it.

"Why not? You seem to like duelling with me and we could talk about strategies, it'd be fun," he said, smiling at her.

Why hadn't she paid much attention to him before?

It had to come down to… Asuka. Juudai and Asuka. No one said they were together, neither of them said it either, but there was something between them that Junko just couldn't avoid. Asuka was one of Junko's closest friends, if there was a chance that Asuka liked a boy than Junko would keep away from him. She might love boys herself but her friendship with Asuka was more important than that.

After she hadn't replied for a few moments Juudai carried on, "You don't have to though. It was just a thought. I know that you'd probably think it'd be weird to hang out with a guy." He started to walk again.

"It's not that!"

She covered her mouth. But he'd already stopped to look back at her now.

"That is…" she stuttered. Why was she stuttering and getting embarrassed about talking to Juudai? He was just Juudai! He wasn't an attractive boy that she wanted to date - he was a duellist. He was… a duellist. And maybe… she wanted to be a duellist too.

"I'd… like to hang out with you more," she said, swallowing and trying to get the image of Asuka out of her mind, "Maybe you could help me with duel strategies."

His face broke into one of his genuine smiles.

"That'd be great! Though you really don't need much help at all. You can swarm the field with Hunter Owls really well," he said.

And that was it. He was a duellist. It was really all about the duels to him. He'd never even think that hanging around with a girl could be for any other reason.

She was glad of that.


End file.
